The Shadow Guard Read online

  He’d puked for along time after he’d identified her and Dad.

  Jake beat on his thigh with his fist, his stomach knotting faster than rush-hour traffic. The older he got, the less welcome murder became. But this one—this hurt more than anything he’d faced before.

  I’ll find your killer, pretty lady, he promised her silently. We’ll bring him to justice, no matter how long it takes.

  Feet pounded down the alley toward them and sirens keened atop the hill, behind the fancier nightclubs and bars. The headquarters dudes had finally pulled their gear together to come help the victim who’d landed halfway between the two oldest government buildings in town.

  Jake’s eyes met Miller’s in perfect understanding. Jake had only arrived so soon because he’d been at Duffy’s Tavern a block away, eyeing his prospects for getting laid after a week of nothing but overtime. He hadn’t lost anything by bolting out of there to come down here. Hell, even his best pickup line wasn’t getting him far tonight.

  “Glad you got here first, Sarge,” Miller said, a little hoarsely. “She deserves the best homicide cop.”

  “Most senior.” Jake shrugged off the compliment to his record.

  Something hissed softly, just below a whisper.

  Jake frowned but began to circle the victim, looking for clues. He squatted to look more closely at her boots.

  A spark flashed beside his hand. His skin sizzled and fire danced through his bones. For an instant, her clothing faded into a shadowy outline until he could see the womanly curves underneath.

  No damage there whatsoever, other than the gaping hole in her neck and a little bruising to her wrists.

  Jake jumped back, startled. His heart thudded in his chest, far faster than during any shootout.

  He couldn’t have seen that. He’d only glimpsed something like it once before, eighteen years ago.

  What the hell caused that spark?

  He automatically checked for a live wire lying hot and deadly across the damp cobblestones. Nothing there but the same uneven gray stones he’d learned to run across as a child.

  Static electricity, maybe?

  He suddenly wanted to stutter more than any rookie cop. How could he ask Miller if he’d noticed anything?

  “What have we got, Hammond?” Chief Andrews loomed suddenly behind Miller, his thick form compressed into a tuxedo. He was probably grateful to escape another political fund-raiser before it transitioned from dining to dancing.

  Jake responded with familiar, comforting cop speak, his haven since he was twenty.

  “Unknown female murder victim, sir, of a knifing.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Jake took another long pull from his double mocha latte before he picked up the bulging folder. No matter what anybody said about the modern office, cops still depended on coffee and paperwork. Belhaven’s volunteer grant writer had earned her spot by providing restaurant-quality cappuccino makers for every department. Her latest achievement was decorating the squad room in the latest office furniture to match their new computers.

  It didn’t matter. Big cases produced mountains of paper, unlike the sleek tables they hid. Jake preferred his coffee on the heavily caffeinated side to match, especially after only six hours of sleep in two days.

  The squad room’s TV newscaster’s voice blurred into an all-too-familiar sound bite. “And now we’re returning to last night’s interview with Belhaven Police Chief Andrews about the drowning in Old Town . . .”

  Two men groaned. A third cop aimed the remote like a pistol and sent the news station tumbling into blessed silence.

  Jake nodded his thanks, grateful he hadn’t needed to spend time chatting to journalists.

  Two stations in town had interviewed the chief about the murder victim and the local cable channel was running their longer piece every few hours. They’d promised their listeners updates, too.

  Jake wished he had some to offer.

  At least the youngest homicide dick on the squad had delayed his skiing vacation in order to help out on the phones, which were ringing off the hook. It wasn’t often a corpse showed up in the largest nightclub district on the East Coast between New York and Atlanta.

  Citizens were eager to make suggestions and everything had to be checked out. At least the media still thought it was a drowning case; God knows how intense the hysteria would be if the public knew how viciously his mystery lady had been knifed.

  So far, nothing had smelled worthy of taking his tackle out for deeper investigation, as his father would have said. All he had was his corpse; an Egyptian mummy would have been chattier.

  Hell, he couldn’t even make a guess at her name yet.

  “Hey there, Hammond.” Danica Jones’s honey-flavored Alabama accent turned the greeting into an invitation.

  Jake smiled lazily at her and pretended to give the offer due consideration. Twenty years of marriage and five children later, Sergeant Jones was a lucky man to find Danica in his bed every night. She had more curves than a Ferrari, a better ear for gossip than an FBI wiretap, and a bigger heart than a charity telethon.

  Somehow their union had even survived her part-time job as a civilian employee, which meant she knew every detail of her husband’s workday—good, bad, or indifferent. It made SWAT operations touchy for everyone—the two of them and the rest of the department. Everybody hated seeing her worry during those high-risk moments.

  Seeing them together usually sent Jake straight to his favorite meat bar to pick up a partner for some heavy screwing, unhampered by thought. Far better to do that than remember how his folks had gazed at each other the same way.

  “Hi, Danica.” He sat down at his desk and set the new folder on top of the older, larger pile of leads to be followed up. He could take a few minutes to chat with her before he read them. “You’re looking good today. Have you been training for the Tidewater 5K?”

  “Oh, real hard.” She laughed at him and made a swatting motion. “Can’t you see how I’ve firmed up?”

  She rotated and he obediently ogled her, while the detectives across the aisle clapped and cheered.

  “You’ll make all those other runners sweat when you hit the starting line.”

  “Runners?” She hooted, her double chins jiggling slightly. “Walkers, honey, walkers. I intend to stroll through the park for the 5K. My wardrobe won’t stand up to breaking a sweat.”

  “Good God, no, you shouldn’t have to do that.” He rose to his feet and hugged her enthusiastically. “You’ll be the most elegant athlete there. In fact, I think I need to pledge more for the battered women’s shelter the funds will go to.”

  “You will?” She squeezed him hard.

  “Definitely. They’ve been in business for a long time.”

  “Decades.” She sniffled. “They’re the best around, maybe the best in the state—and we’re this close to paying off the mortgage. Elswyth will be so thrilled.”

  “Awesome. The good guys deserve to rescue at least one home from the bank, especially when so many are going down the foreclosure toilet.” Jake patted her on the shoulder. “Do you have a blank pledge form?”

  “Really? In that case, I’ll help, too.” Other detectives stirred and moved forward, pens at the ready. Almost all of them had sent a woman and her children to Enfield House at least once. It wasn’t the closest shelter to Belhaven, but it was sure as hell the safest.

  Danica beamed, bright as headlights burning through fog.

  Jake handed her his pledge form. She glanced at the numbers and blinked.

  “You deserve it,” he said quietly. “Both for the shelter and yourself.”

  “Thank you.” Her smile trembled, then grew. “I’ll make record time, I promise.”

  “Looking forward to seeing it.”

  “And, Jake—”

  “Yeah?”

  “Two guys from the FBI are talking to the chief. I think it’s about you.” She dropped her voice to a near whisper, too quiet to be heard by the other detectives.
r />   “Why?” He stared at her, disbelief icing his veins. Feds were never good news. Either they complicated the case—or the case itself was pure hell. “They’d never get involved with a simple murder, not unless we asked them in.”

  “Just what I overheard.” She shrugged slightly. “Thought you should know.”

  “Hey, they probably just want help guarding a courtroom.” The Federal government had given Belhaven a brand-new, high-security courthouse in exchange for use during badass criminal trials. Belhaven cops liked it as an easy way to earn overtime, as long as it didn’t interfere too much with their normal duties. He squelched her far more unsettling suggestion. “Chief always pulls my unit in last for guard duty, especially with a high-profile murder like this one going on.”

  The other detectives crowded closer to hand over their pledges, and she broke off the conversation with Jake to talk to them.

  He glanced back at his messages and shook his head, then sat back down in his excuse for an office and logged onto his computer. One sergeant had always been more than enough to run Belhaven’s small homicide squad, given the few murders that occurred in this city. Jake had been on the squad for years before he received the promotion. He knew the job and he knew Belhaven.

  Murder cases frequently felt like a messy ball of string. But he’d always known where to find a loose end to pull for clues.

  Forty-eight hours into the case—the grace period when he could usually at least guess where to look—every lead had led nowhere. And the public was giving him mountains more stuff to track down every minute.

  He cursed under his breath and drained his latte. Dammit, maybe if he looked online he could find a lead. The coroner’s preliminary report might have something useful in it.

  His cell phone buzzed against his hip, and he ignored it.

  He frowned. How many people had the number to his personal cell? His brother Logan and . . .

  The distinctive triple pattern sounded again.

  He grabbed his phone and flipped it open.

  Message from Andromache.

  A slow smile spread across his face despite everything else demanding his attention. They’d played Argos together on the same server since the game had started six years ago. Now they were members of the same guild. He was a mage who specialized in blasting bad guys with spectacularly efficient spells, which removed them faster than any court system. She was a very sneaky barbarian warrior, notable for her boobs, black braids, and flying axes according to her online avatar.

  He couldn’t count the number of quests they’d gone on. He wouldn’t have as many points if they didn’t game together so often.

  Hey there, he texted back to her.

  Hi. Gaming tonight?

  Sorry. Big case here eating up my time.

  He kicked back in his chair, certain she wouldn’t want to chat about his job any more than he would hers. She’d probably figured out he was a cop, based on his responses to some very illegal suggestions on Argos boards. But she’d never said so specifically and she sure as hell had never been interested in any crimes.

  The Belhaven knifing victim?

  A cold wave rippled across Jake’s skin, faster than a trout rising for air. The number of people who knew exactly how the mystery lady had died were fewer than he had fingers on his phone’s keys.

  Why? he asked and wondered how fast he could subpoena Andromache’s cell phone records, if she didn’t tell him.

  There was a long pause.

  An e-mail announced that the coroner’s preliminary report was available for review. Nothing helpful there; that doughty old broad had already phoned him with the results.

  Jake started to compose a stronger demand for Andromache.

  Do you have ANY leads to the killer?

  His thumbs hung over the keypad and he gaped at the small screen like a stranded trout. Why the emphasis? Did she know how unusually hard this case was?

  A million questions clamored in his head, but he couldn’t send any of them on an open line. He settled for the simplest.

  Why do you ask?

  Seconds ticked past before an answer came, every letter emblazoned on a yellow flag like a giant warning sign.

  I can help.

  What do you mean???

  Her answer shot back faster than the freight trains barreling into town.

  Where can we talk? PRIVATELY.

  Jake stood up so abruptly that his keyboard bounced onto the carpeted floor. Heads turned to stare and he glowered their owners back to their own business.

  He could take her into an interrogation room, but that would be recorded. Years of friendship demanded better treatment, at least until he knew whether she was willing to tell the truth.

  He chose every Belhaven cop’s favorite hangout.

  Duffy’s Tavern in an hour?

  Sure. See ya then.

  She disappeared without asking how to find Duffy’s. Only the trail of golden balloons and text across his phone’s screen confirmed she just might have something helpful to say.

  He blew out a breath and shoved his phone back into its holster.

  The pile of message slips seemed to sneer at him, all spurious innocence in its demand for his attention.

  Dammit, his brain would rather race through a thousand labyrinths in a quest to discover Andromache’s secrets. Starting with what the hell she looked like.

  His computer chimed. A small, orange square began to flash on his monitor’s corner.

  Jake gave it the same narrow-eyed look he’d grant an open door in a drug dealer’s hideout. Then he clicked on it.

  Hammond, I need you in my office now. The FBI is here. Over.

  All of Jake’s previous arrogance about the Feds faded into cold mush at the bottom of his stomach, together with every other stupid boast he’d ever made. What the hell could they do for his case except slow it down?

  He gritted his teeth and typed. Roger that.

  Maybe he’d catch a break, the second one of the day, and they’d only want to talk guard duty. Yeah, right.

  “Hammond, these are Special Agents Fisher and Murphy of the FBI.” Andrews’ body looked more relaxed than Jake expected, and yet his eyes were more perplexed. Around him, photographs of him with foreign and national dignitaries radiated confidence. Highly polished examples of every rifle the department had owned for the past two centuries conveyed lethal competence.

  Jake shook hands with the two pin-striped strangers and tried to hide his wariness. Their well-tailored suits couldn’t disguise the weapons belts at their hips nor their direct assessment of him.

  “Gentlemen, this is Sergeant Jake Hammond. He’s the head of our homicide unit and is personally leading the investigation into Saturday night’s murder case. He was the first detective on the scene.”

  “Very glad to meet you, Hammond,” said Murphy, the taller of the two and a woman. “We’ll be working closely with you on Division Director Williams’s murder.”

  “Division Director? Williams?” Shock thudded through Jake’s system and deepened his voice. “May I ask who you’re talking about?”

  “Melinda Williams is a GSA division director who was reported missing in North Carolina five days ago,” Murphy answered quietly, her cool, black eyes measuring Jake like a surveyor’s sextant.

  “Five days? If she drove directly back here, then three days in the water—” The calendar arranged itself in front of his eyes, dates sturdy as soldiers standing to be counted.

  “And two days in the coroner’s office. Yes, the time line fits neatly.” Murphy sipped her coffee as precisely as she’d folded the scarf at her neck. “Miss Williams took a rental car to Elizabeth City, since flights aren’t readily available there, unlike Raleigh.”

  “But she was reported missing in North Carolina, not here.” Jake doggedly pursued the victim’s footprints.

  “Because she didn’t tell her office or her family that she was returning. When she didn’t phone in, the search started at her North Car
olina long-term rental apartment.”

  Chief Andrews watched them silently, his fingers steepled like a rack of guns ready to go to war.

  “Why do you think it’s her?” Jake pushed harder, determined to find all the secrets in the FBI’s arsenal.

  “Miss Williams is very distinctive physically.” Fisher spoke up for the first time, his deep voice shadowing the room. “Height, weight”—his eyes met Jake’s, and they shared a moment’s masculine response to those statistics—“and a small zodiac tattoo on the small of her back all matched your victim. Her fingerprints came back positive just before Murphy and I arrived here.”

  “Good to know,” Jake murmured. They’d probably rushed the tests through. “She worked for GSA, you said. The General Services Administration, right?”

  He kept his tongue and, he hoped, his tone away from dismissing them as the bureaucrats’s bureaucrats.

  “Correct. She was in the Public Building Service, where Uncle Sam is the government’s landlord.” Fisher and Murphy’s utter relaxation confirmed that they, too, considered Williams and her group to be just ordinary public servants, not critical to the country’s protection.

  “Report said that she was knifed, which is why we came over,” Murphy added.

  “Since she’s a federal employee and disappeared while she was working, her death might be related to her job, making it an FBI issue.” Fisher peered into his mug’s depths, then unhappily swirled the dregs. “I never expected to find a vanilla latte with soy at a police station. Can we have another round of coffee, please, before we talk about today’s real problem—the upcoming arraignment of those terrorists?”